Laurel Lance (i_crylikeabird) wrote in we_coexist, @ 2011-07-10 11:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | dinah lance, harry dresden |
Nothing Survives (Harry)
Takes place after this
Dinah couldn’t quite wrap her head around the finality of what Joey had shared. She operated on auto-pilot at first, notifying the people who needed to be notified so they didn’t continue the search for…
The search for nothing. For no one living. She tried not to think about that.
She was relieved when she got voicemails for Fred and Dean, and Harry’s answering machine. She left each a similar message. Her voice was even, measured, almost numb. In each message, she asked to be left alone.
She didn’t know what she needed, really. But she knew what she didn’t need or want. She didn’t need someone to tell her it was all going to be okay, because it wasn’t. And she didn’t want or deserve someone to tell her that she wasn’t at fault, that she’d done all she could.
Dinah couldn’t decide if it worse to think that she’d done all she could and still fallen short, or to think that maybe she’d missed something. Maybe she could have done more, or done things differently.
She steered her bike around the City, circling around the streets on the outskirts as her mind went in a similar pattern, going around and around with what she’d done and hadn’t done, trying to find the ways she could have been better, could have done something differently to prevent this.
It all came back to that moment in the florist shop. To Jack’s entrance. She should have somehow known something was off, should never have said Jake’s name in front of him. For that matter, once he did reveal himself, she should have kept better tabs on Jake instead of assuming that she would be the one the Joker went after. That she could have handled. That would have so much better than…
When she couldn’t focus on driving safely anymore, Dinah steered her bike off the road and parked it on a hillside overlooking the lake-or whatever the body of water that surrounded the City was. She sat down on the grass and looked out at the water, glad that she’d found a place that she hadn’t ever been to. There were enough memories floating around her mind without the external reminder of what she’d lost.
She had finally circled back to all of the things that she’d planned to do with Jake before his disappearance. She’d just barely started training him to defend himself in non-lethal ways, and she’d hoped to help him experience all of the things that kids his age should get to experience at least once-she’d been keeping her eye out for any sign of a fair or carnival, there’d been movies to see, restaurants to eat at, museums to visit.
She should have told him how much she cared. She’d always been unsure of whether she had the right to feel like he was her son, but she felt that way all the same. And yet, a part of her always felt like she was just borrowing him for awhile. That Barbara would return and do a much better job as a parent than she ever could and that would be that. If Barbara-the Barbara she had known back in Gotham-had been there, none of this would have happened, of that Dinah was almost positive.
The tears flowed freely. She had no idea how long she sat there or how long it was until she seemed to run of tears and the energy it took to cry.
Dinah knew that she would have to leave eventually. She would have to go back to life and to trying to continue the fight to save people, always falling just a bit too short, never really winning. She would have to return to the people she cared about and to her shop-the reminder that there was still love and beauty and good things for people. She would eventually have to return to the Clocktower, as much as she dreaded going back there.
But for the moment, she just sat and stared out at the water, all cried out and too numb to move.